Image courtesy of Make D.C. Weird.

You’ve heard the stereotypes about D.C. enough times to make your ears bleed. We’re boring, we live in the gilded world of House of Cards, we have bad style. You name it.

But Erik Moe wants residents to break out of those contradictory cliches. He wants us to “Make D.C. Weird.” Or at least, to think about what it might mean to make D.C. weird.

“I think D.C. has a lot going for it that isn’t necessarily what gets presented,” says Moe, an activist and arts advisor who has lived here for nine years. “We’re trying to rethink the image of D.C. It’s not about my opinion, but about a conversation about the kind of city we want.”

He doesn’t call it a movement, but instead an experiment to learn about people’s expectations for their community. “It’s a phrase that I’ve thought about for three or four years,” says Moe. “It provokes people to start thinking.”

Now that phrase is on a sticker designed by Moe that Make D.C. Weird is selling for $2. The site promises that at least $1 of the proceeds of each sale will go to “D.C. artists as the project works to commission bigger, weirder things to help #makeDCweird.”

The sticker is “a baby step. It’s not the thing that [Make D.C. Weird] will eventually be known for, but for now it’s something to grab onto,” says Moe. Once they sell out, there will be no reprints. Make D.C. Weird will just move on to something else.

Sales of the stickers have been “very little so far,” according to Moe. He is not daunted, because the soft launch has been “pretty positive.”

That doesn’t mean there haven’t been naysayers. “We’ve gotten the predictable responses—’D.C. isn’t Austin,’ and ‘Portland already tried this.’ But for me, it’s the start. I really value art and culture, and think it’s a critical part of community. I’m curious if others have answers to those questions.”

Moe isn’t a native Washingtonian, though, “I’ve lived here longer than anywhere else as an adult, and I definitely feel that D.C. is home. There are legitimate concerns about who has the right to shape this city. That’s why I don’t want this to be about me. I want this to be a robust, collaborative conversation.”

You can chime in with your thoughts here.